Vol 21 Issue 11

INSIDER 07.12.2018 | VOL. 21 | ISSUE 11

STUDENT MAGAZINE OF XAMK

FINNISH INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA

RECIPE FINNISH INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA

TIPS FOR LONG FLIGHTS EXCHANGE TO CZECH REPUBLIC

EDITORIAL STAFF

Polina Vishnya Kouvola Current Affairs

Marija Marash Kouvola Current Affairs

Alisa Kivirian Exchange View Affairs

Leif Heflin Kouvola Current Affairs

Van-Trang Le Kouvola Current Affairs

Elizabeth Akinlabi Kouvola Current Affairs

Minh-Trang Le Kouvola Current Affairs

Long Nguyen Layout Editor

Trung Dao Layout Editor/ Kouvolan Current Affairs

Nikita Munenko Kouvola Current Affairs

Hugh Clack Editor in Chief

INSIDER STUDENT MAGAZINE South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Paraatikenttä 7 45100 Kouvola Editor in Chief: Hugh Clack INSIDER ISSN 1457-1587 /INSIDERSTUDENTMAGAZINE 2

PHONE +358 44 702 8758 WEBSITE insider.xamk.fi EMAIL insider@xamk.fi

EDITORIAL

Welcome!

Let's raise our glasses to congratulate Finland on its 101 years. Everyone dressed up beautifully and prepared for the gala night organized by Kupla as an annual tradition. Go check it out. There are a ton of amazing things waiting for you.

This week's recipe will please your eyes and stomach with easy-to-find ingredients and easy-to-do instructions.

Landscape, atmosphere and experiences in Czech Republic are worth-reading too.

One of our staff member was going back to her country which is very far away from here. Tips for a long flight are brought to you so that you can try when travelling by plane for more than 7 hours from your home country.

Long Nguyen 3

FINNISH INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA

This is the event we all have been waiting for! It was time to elegantly celebrate Finland. It is Finland 101st year Independent anniversary. The celebration was held on the 4th of December by Student Organization Kupla Ry in Kouvolan Upseerikerho which is a restaurant near Kouvola campus.

Annually, participants will dress up beautifully with dress code according to Kupla for the Gala night.

The hall was full of flickering light and lovely music. The room was decorated mainly in white and blue as the colors of Finland. Tables were neatly arranged with flowers and candles, which created coziness and warmness in contrast to cold weather and darkness outside. Some were talking to their friends while some were making new ones. Participants were not only from Kouvola, we were happy to welcome students from other campuses.

4

Antti Huuki is Kupla’s Manager of events. He spoke about what happened this year and how Finland continued its journey after 100 years of independence. Then, he also mentioned several prominent events in 2018 such as President Election and how Finland went thrilled for 2 days when the president’s child was born. It was good news to their family, wasn’t it? This was one of his quotes: "This year there came a law that finally we can buy more than one drink at a time in restaurants - because of course we didn't do that before."

The next speech was given by Eeva Vissel - Chairperson of the board of Student Union Kaakko.

Finally, Jorma Fagerström - the Minister of Culture at Xamk was present as well and gave a speech in relation to Finnish histories, philosophy and hopes for future.

Let’s raise your glass to celebrate Suomi 101 and hope the best for it in 2019.

Antti Huuki

Eeva Vissel

Jorma Fagerström

The night ended with photo shooting with studio lighting and black background arranged by Kupla and excellent performance with their beautiful voices from our singers Jenni and Roosa.

After that, they were heading to Brooklyn for the Afterparty. The music was amazing, the atmosphere was stunning and people were chitchatting in happiness.

More photos will be uploaded into our website: insider.xamk.fi Text and Photo: Elizabeth Akinlabi, Long Nguyen

5

HOW TO SURVIVE A LONG FLIGHT

Me and you, we are studying abroad in this beloved country together – meaning long flights are inevitably a part of our lives. I will not say I envy my Russian pals who can simply hop on a train which will take them straight to Russia in a matter of hours, but I really do. Vietnam and Finland are 8000km apart, so takes approximately fifteen hours to travel between the two. So far, I have been four flights in total, so I am confident that I have certain experience being on long flights. With that being said, below are some tips from me to you, on how to survive a long flight.

1. The neater your belonging is, the less hassle you will have.

On my first long flight, I remember bringing a ton of stuff with me. A big bag, an equally big backpack, another bag for food, etc. It was excruciating going through security control already, but carrying all those belongings with me on a packed flight was as troublesome. I was flying alone as well (because I was an edgy teenager), so whenever I needed to use the restroom, I had to organize my bags so that 1, hopefully no one would steal anything from me and 2, to not disturb others. So the lesson here is, one backpack which contains all your electronic devices, important papers and money is more than enough. The remaining can stay in the checked baggage.

6

2. Necessary gears!

Travel pillows, lip balm, moisturizer, toothbrush and toothpaste, earphones, water, medicines, etc. You name it. Make a list of all the necessary items that can make the lengthy flight a little bit tolerable and make room for them in your carry-on baggage right away. Now before you say that half of these things are offered on the plane. Well, instead of using the disposable toothbrush and that tiny pillow that the airline gives to you and produce unnecessary waste, isn’t better to bring your own stuff which cater to your needs?

3. Entertainment and Services

What I mean here are basically: food and movies. The good side of long flights is the free dinner/lunch as well as the impressive collection of movies, TV shows, music and games. Since I flew Vietnam Airlines, a good chunk of this collection was in Vietnamese. I was thrilled to see my two favorite bands on the monitor screen. My advice to you is, try to explore the services that the airline has to offer. You can easily kill four hours of flight time by watching two movies. As for the food, in contradict with many people, the food I have eaten on the plane has never been THAT bad. So even if you are tired to your ears, make sure to eat something, or at least stay hydrated. The last thing you want is getting sick thousands of miles above the ground.

Text and Photo: Minh-Trang Le

7

EXCHANGE TO CZECH REPUBLIC PART 5.2

Prague Castle Before I went to Czech Republic, I could never imagine that history of Prague could be so immensely spectacular and gripping. As soon as you take even a tiny sip of it, you will get deeper and deeper involved with it diving into the details of each monument and become eager to explore every time period of the city.

The first sightseeing point that I saw in Prague was Old Town Square or Staroměstské náměstí (if you dare to pronounce it in Czech) which is located in the heart of Prague. It is the most popular tourist attraction, thousands of tourists come to Prague to see it. Surrounded with several buildings of various architectural styles such as Baroque and Gothic Old Town square represents a unique historical sight with lots of breath-taking stories behind it.

8

The first thing that appears in front of your eyes as you get to the Old Town square is the Gothic Church of Our Lady before Týn. I saw it under cloud of night lightened up in its majesty and beauty. The Gothic Church conceal many secrets in its towers and can tell the most mysterious stories to the travellers. The towers of the church are eighty meters high and each of them is topped by four small spires. If you take a closer look, you can see that the right tower is quite different from the left one, it is wider. Construction of the Church started in 14th century in the late Gothic style of that time and it was almost complete by the beginning of 15th century except for the towers, gamble and roof. Here comes the answer to our first mystery, the northern tower and gamble were completed in 1450s while the southern tower was not completed until 1511 by the different architect. Another distinctive feature of the Church which will definitely lead to climax of architectural enthusiasts is its combination of two styles: gothic and baroque. Which surprisingly happened because of unpredicted weather forecast in 1679, when the church was struck by lightning that caused fire and consequently partly damaged the old vault which was later renovated and replaced by the lower vault in baroque style.

Gothic Church of Our Lady before Týn at the Old Town Square

On the other side of square Old Town Hall is catching curious traveller`s eye. It is a set of ancient houses connected one by one to single unit. Prague Orloj is a medieval astronomical clock mounted on the Old Town Hall, which is the most famous element of Tower. The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the thirdoldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest one still in operation. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT??

Except from the extraordinary of astronomical dial, clocks hide small figures of twelve apostles which set in motion during the fight hours of the clock. Awesome sight!

Walking around the Old Town square, we breathed in slowly the night through our chest feeling the mystery of Prague and got amazed again and again by its soleness.

Just in case if you are interested about the backscene, it was half past four and we have been pretty wasted after clubbing the whole time and slowly trailing through the city centre on our way to McDonalds.

The next day after a rough night and a few hours of sleep we woke up and headed to the largest ancient castle in the world (According to the Guinness Book of Records) – Prague castle or Pražský hrad. Its scale is impressive! It is occupying an area of almost 70,000 square metres, at about 570 metres in length and an average of about 130 metres wide. It is so huge that people were literally laying on the ground trying to capture a photo of the whole castle. Honestly saying, I wasn’t an exception lol. There is no way I can not mention its fabulously stunning architecture. It unites virtually every architectural style of the last millennium.

It satisfies even the most sophisticated imagination as it includes Gothic St Vitus Cathedral, Romanesque Basilica of St. George, a monastery and several palaces, gardens, defence towers and even several museums and exhibitions.

In the next article I will share interesting facts about Prague Castle and surprise you with fascinating stories you could never think of. Can`t wait? Then stay updated with Insider and start booking your tickets to Prague!

Stained-glass windows inside Prague Castle

Going to be continued still…

Text and Photo: Polina Vishnya

9

RECIPE

Quiche.

I am not sure where this recipe comes from, but it is something that my sister cooks and i really like so I thought why not share it with you?

Ingredients: •

500 ml Yoghurt

Instructions:

•

200 gr Feta cheese

•

3 Zucchini

Take the yoghurt, the cheese, the zucchinis, the eggs and mix them all together until you have a homogenous mass. After this you add the garlic powder, the salt and the black pepper. Keep mixing and check if there is enough salt for your taste. In a baking pan you put the dough through all the pan and paint it with the olive oil. The corners of the dough should be turned from the inside.

•

4 eggs

•

Garlic powder

•

Dough which you can make by

The oven should be heated at 200 degrees and you put it in there and let it bake for approximately 30 minutes. Check it very often because it is supposed to become very fluffy while it is baking.

•

Olive oil

•

Salt and pepper

After 30 minutes your dish is ready to be served! enjoy!

Text and Photo: Marija Marash

10

yourself or buy it. For this case I bought it.

PARTY INFO BOARD

STUDIO 123 Kymenlaaksonkatu 1 45700 Kuusankoski 044 375 3686 www.studio123.fi 07.12.2018 -13.12.2018 STUDIO 1 THE GRINCH (DUB) (7) | 11€ | 1h26mins Sat - Sun 15:20, Mon - Thu 17:15 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (S) | 12€ | 2h15mins Every evening 19:00 VIIRU JA PESONEN – VIIRU MUUTTAA (S) | 10€ | 1h22mins Fri - Sun 17:15, Wed - Thu 17:15

STUDIO 2 OMA MAA (7) | 11€ |1h49mins Sat - Sun 15:00 SWINGERS (12) | 11€ | 1h26mins Every Evening 17:30 IHMEOTUKSET: GRINDELWALDIN RIKOKSET (12) | 12€ | 2h14mins Fri, Sun, Tue, Thu 19:20 WITCHFINDER GENERAL (16) | 11€ | 1h27mins Sat, Mon, Wed 19:20

STUDIO 3 OLAVI VIRTA (12) | 12€ | 2h05mins Fri 17:00, Sat 14:45

O Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!! In the middle of December is the perfect time to gather to the Meduusa-studio! 12.12 we will celebrate prechristmas, by having a Hangout! Get your drinks and christmas hats with you! Since this is the first and the last Hangout of the Autumn, for oir freshmen, here's a tiny info packet: Hangout is an event where we chill together, play games, sing karaoke, drink our own drinks and have fun at the Meduusa-Studio! After party is in BarQ at 22! This event is completely free!

Text and Photo: Kupla's Facebook page

COLETTE (12) | 11€ | 1h51mins Sat - Tue, Thu 17:00 KIKIN LÄHETTIPAL VELU (S) | 11€ | 1h43mins Finnish Sun 15:00 Wed 17:00 Japanese Sun - Mon, Thu 19:20 MAQUIA: WHEN THE PROMISED FLOWER BLOOMS (12) | 12€ | 1h54mins Fri - Sat, Tue - Wed 19:20 Students/armed services, pensioners 1€ discount on all full priced tickets of 10€ or more

11

JOB ADVERTISEMENT

We are accommodation company.

Our head country is Finland, where we have over 7500 furnished apartments. In addition to our apartments, we have also hotels and hostels.

In this area we have only furnish apartments, which we mainly provide for companies. Our the busiest time is in the spring when the need extra help for furnish apartments and cleaning them.

We will call to extra workers if necessary. However, the student receives extra income if interested.

Requirements: Finnish language and a car.

Here is apartments from Kouvola and Kotka: https://www.forenom.com/furnished-apartments/kouvola/ https://www.forenom.com/furnished-apartments/kotka/

12